Season Tickets: What a fabulous Holiday gift idea!

Give the gift of Theatre this year. 

$40 gets you six tickets for any of the four remaining shows this season. That's over half off the regular adult price. That's a deal no matter how you act it out. What are the shows?

Dance USM! December 11-14

Moonchildren Feb. 12-15

Two Puccini operas (limit two tickets) March 13-21

Sylvia April 24-May 3

Call the Box Office at 207-780-5151 to get your passes in time for the Holidays. They even come in a festive envelope — no wrapping required!

Dance USM: Standing Reserve

Dance USM! The University of Southern Maine Department of Theatre's annual celebration of bodies and souls in motion.

WHEN: December 11, 12, 13 at 7 p.m. and December 14 at 2 p.m.
WHERE: Russell Hall on the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham Campus
TICKETS: Students $7, Seniors/Faculty/Staff/Alumni $10, General public $14,
BOX OFFICE: (207) 780-5151


"Standing Reserve," choreographed by Michelle Bernier with music by Jack's Mannequin, Cake and Straylight Run, is based on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger's concept of technology waiting at the ready for humans to call it into action. From left: Kristine Rytky, Michelle Bernier, Dominic Rozzi, Kyle Bouchard and Anne Bartlett.


From left: Kyle Bouchard, Kristine Rykty, Anne Bartlett, Dominic Rozzi and Michelle Bernier.

Carmen, The Mopera

With support from the Cultural Affairs Committee, THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE welcomes internationally known actress and physical comedian Julie Goell for a performance of her one-woman show CARMEN, THE MOPERA, and three day residency.

WHEN: Performance of “Carmen, The Mopera” Wednesday Dec. 3 at 5 p.m., and three workshops entitled “Tools for the Comic Performer” Dec. 2, 4 & 5 from 1 – 4 p.m.

WHERE: Russell Hall on the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham Campus

TICKETS: Students FREE, Seniors/Faculty/Staff/Alumni $10, General public $14

BOX OFFICE: (207) 780-5151

• Julie Goell’s “Carmen, The Mopera” is a fresh, and physically comic, take on the famous 19th century opera “Carmen” by Georges Bizet about a fiery Spanish gypsy who comes to a tragic end. In Goell’s vision, the bathroom matron of the Royal Opera stages a single-handed extravaganza in a utility room, with mops and brooms taking on starring roles and singing all the highlights. Zany comedy meets opera in this one-woman show.

• Julie Goell’s three-day workshop residency “Tools for the Comic Performer’ will explore the physical and comedy techniques seen in “Carmen, The Mopera” in four parts. The first deals with becoming comfortable on stage by learning to make an effective entrance. This includes the comic “button.” Second, students will discover the funny side of physically negotiating a sticky situation. The third part will investigate the comic opportunities when tables are turned on a pair of characters. Finally, students will learn about “flash” theatre technique, which utilizes vocal sound effects, miniaturization and quick costume changes.

• Julie Goell grew up in Rome, Italy where she studied Italian, Bel Canto and Commedia dell' Arte. As a Physical comedian in Europe, she toured with I Gesti and taught physical comedy skills at L’Istituto per lo Studio Dello Spettacolo where she received teacher certification. She recently served as Henson Foundation Artist-in-Residence at the University of Connecticut's Puppet Arts Program. She frequently teaches with her husband Avner Eisenberg, a.k.a. “Avner the Eccentric.”

The Man Who Came to Dinner

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE
Presents the screwball, madcap classic THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

WHEN: Nov. 14, 15, 20, 21 and 22 at 7:30 p.m., Nov. 16, and 23 at 2 p.m.,
Nov. 19 at 5 p.m. and a special high school matinee Nov. 18 at 10 a.m.
WHERE: Russell Hall on the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham Campus
TICKETS: Students $7, Seniors/Faculty/Staff/Alumni $10, General public $14, Wednesday & high school matinees all tickets $5
BOX OFFICE: (207) 780-5151

The screwball belly laughs come fast and furious when irascible 1930s radio impresario Sheridan Whiteside, the Oprah Winfrey of his day, breaks a hip at the home of a quiet mid-western family, and proceeds to turn their lives inside out, orchestrating a series of sneaky shenanigans while recuperating in their living room. Axe-murders are invited to tea, penguins are harbored in the library, an octopus inhabits the cellar and 10,000 cockroaches take over the kitchen.

When Whiteside’s secretary Maggie (Megan Leddy of Freeport, ME) falls in love with reporter Bert Jefferson, (Michael Lynch of Westport, MA) who has arrived to interview Whiteside, (Travis Grant of Waldoboro, ME) he summons the glamorous actress Lorraine (Mary Casas of Washington, ME) to distract the young man. Maggie counters with the help of a clever impersonator pretending to be Lord Bottomly, whom Lorraine hopes to marry. When Lorraine gets wise to the ruse she tries to lure Bert away on a trip to Lake Placid to work on a play. Then an ancient mummy case arrives by mail and….

Sound complicated? It is! That’s what makes The Man Who Came to Dinner a crisscrossed comedy classic of the American Theatre. Despite its age and classic status, USM’s cast of nearly 30 student actors rips through the piece with broad, enthusiastic vigor, keeping the farcical comedy fresh and vital. The plot is stuffed with a nearly endless supply of outrageous comedic characters for young performers to luxuriate in, and squeeze for every laugh they’re worth.

Professor Thomas A. Power directs the venerable play and says he’s not worried about some of the 1930s allusions getting missed in the mayhem.

“Some of the references are obscure, but it’s a classic set-up,” he says from his office on the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine before going upstairs to run a rehearsal. “It’s still fun. The situation is timeless.”

Travis Grant of Waldoboro, left, stars as Sheridan Whiteside along with Megan Leddy of Freeport, center left, playing his secretary Maggie, Michael Lynch of Westport, MA as Burt the reporter and Mary Casas as the lovely Lorraine, sent to tear Maggie and Burt apart.


Travis Grant of Waldoboro, center front, stars as Sheridan Whiteside along with Megan Leddy of Freeport, left, playing his secretary Maggie, Michael Lynch of Westport, MA as Burt the reporter and Mary Casas as the lovely Lorraine, sent to tear Maggie and Burt apart.

Sam Shepard's FOOL FOR LOVE

WHEN: Oct. 3, 4, 9, 10 & 11 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 5 at 2 p.m. and Oct. 8 at 5 p.m.
WHERE: Russell Hall on the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham Campus
TICKETS: Students $7, Seniors/Faculty/Staff/Alumni $10, General public $14, Wednesday & high school matinees all tickets $5
BOX OFFICE: (207) 780-5151

Veteran USM director Professor William Steele throws the new season into gear this October with a stunning Sam Shepard drama full of shocking twists to challenge both his cast, as well as his audience. There is nowhere to hide in Shepard’s four-character play, studded with searing monologues beaming like a searchlights over a prison yard during a jailbreak.

Professor Steele, in his 42nd year of teaching and directing at USM, says Shepard’s play is the perfect story to set the 2008-09 season in motion.

“It’s a great story, and a good one for students because it’s psychologically complicated. It’s lead to a lot of great discussions about human nature,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to do a Sam Shepard play on the main stage, and Fool for Love is one of my personal favorites.”

The play begins in a forgotten motel room, on the edge of a desert way out west. A pair of desperate lovers named May (Audra Curtis of Belfast, Maine) and Eddie (Charles Parker Newton of Fairfield, Conn.) try to untangle their twisted past. As the recriminations fly like bullets at a gunfight, the action becomes, at times, physically violent and the genuine nature of their relationship becomes apparent—they cannot get along with, or without, one another, yet neither can control their burning passion.

Meanwhile, a mysterious old man (Joe Mcleod) hovers over the pair, commenting wryly as their warped story unwinds. His place in the narrative only becomes clear as secrets are revealed and the true nature of Eddie and May’s tangled affair is made plain.

In the middle of this personal drama, a hapless young man, Martin, (Jordan Handren-Seavey of Harrison, Maine) stops by to take May to the movies and becomes the butt of Eddie's funniest and most humiliating jokes.

Eventually, May and Eddie tire of their struggle and embrace—but the respite is temporary and their love, a curse from the past which haunts them, will remain forever damned and hopeless.